


Prices and Chances

by Gryphonrhi



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, challenges: X-Files Lyric Wheel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-03
Updated: 2010-03-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:50:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryphonrhi/pseuds/Gryphonrhi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Krycek's paid, and what he's willing to bet, to try to hound the aliens off the earth. Set in the same world as Sleeps With Coyotes' <a href="http://ciceqi.slashcity.com/XF.htm">Breathless & Solidarity</a>, with her gracious permission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prices and Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers: 1013 owns them, or thinks so. After this last season, I'm tempted to put in a lien on them, m'self. Spoilers for all Krycek and myth-arc episodes up through "The Red and The Black." Alex's background is based off the universe created by Sleeps with Coyotes in 'Breathless' &amp; 'Solidarity' and used with her permission, brave woman that she is.   
> Rated: R for language, and it starts just after "The Red &amp; The Black."

"It worked."

That's all he says before he hangs up, and that clipped British accent sounds better than the sweetest jazz solo I've ever heard, more joyful than the most reverent 'Kyrie eleison' on Easter Sunday when I was still young enough to almost believe. My gun is laying in parts across the table, stripped down for cleaning because I haven't used it since I ended up in Russia. So this is what joy and survival are always going to smell like, for me anyway: cordite and leather and gun oil. Why am I not surprised?

I hang up the phone before the dial tone can buzz at me and just stand there staring at the faded pattern of the wallpaper without really seeing it. Time beats on my skin, a constant drumming that keeps pace with my heart, telling me that there are things to do, places to go, plans to set in motion, allies to gather, enemies to kill... but all I can do is stand here, dazed.

Because, really, I never thought we'd get this far. God or Whatever, the vaccine works.

I wanted to get this far, don't get me wrong. I still want to keep going, to win. Because I meant what I told Mulder tonight: The only law is fight or die. The only options are resist, or serve.

Those aren't options. Not for me. Screw them. I'll fight, and I'm damn well going to win. I wanted this so badly, paid so much for it.... I had to lose myself along the way. I don't know what happened to Aleksandr Mikhailovich. Somewhere in this war I had to change my name, become just Alex Krycek, and well, that's okay, it's necessary in this job. And I've told myself for years that what I left behind I don't miss anyway.

Because unlike Mulder, I know what I'm fighting for: our world, with us on it. Fuck the aliens. They screwed up their own world; they can leave ours the hell alone. I want to go to sleep at night without waking up wondering if I'm still me, or if some identity wrapped up in crude oil took over the wheel, stuffing me in the back of my own mind to watch while it does what it wants with my hands, my legs, my knowledge.

Knowing what I want, and what we need to get it, is what keeps Mulder alive, however. I'm a hacker, a thief, an investigator, a torturer, an assassin.... It took a dozen men and my own exhaustion before those well-meaning bastards could take out my arm, and even that doesn't matter. Not in the long run, not in the greater plans for this war. I can still do everything that needs to be done, and the important things, like my draw time and my mind, are still sharp.

But the only way Mulder can cope with the plans that draw him in, with the patterns that he sees and has to act on... with me... is by slamming me into walls, or beating the pain of his own losses into my flesh. So I let him. Because if I ever raise my hand to him, there might not be enough left to bury, one armed man or not, and we need him.

I wonder what he'd say if I told him that it's such bullshit that he's the only one who gets to feel so guilty for surviving, for not being grabbed by the aliens. He's not the only one who's paid in flesh and blood in this war. Not by a very long shot. Does he think no one else has lost family to this? My sister, my brothers, my parents, my grandfather -- all gone. All of them dead fighting this war, and that leaves... me. Not the best bargain in the world for the resistance. I'm good at a lot of things, but they were each experts in their specialty. Not me. I'm the killer, the whore, anything I have to be, anything that will win this for us. Screw the means; if I get to the end, I'll worry about justifying my path when I get there... if there's anyone I think I owe an explanation to.

Some mornings, though, I have to remind myself of exactly where I am along the chain of betrayals today. Because details matter, technicalities are the soul of the law, and one day I'm going to map out my 'affiliations' and 'enmities' and it'll look like so much spaghetti. Stained red with my blood, probably.

The start is always simple: I work for the Old Man. He knew back in the '50s that we were going to have to fight, and he's been infiltrating everyone ever since. The Consortium, the governments, the biofirms, you name it, he's moved in and through them as he thought necessary. My family worked with him damn near from the very beginning. My grandfather was VChK in the '30s. He smuggled hundreds of people out of Russia: military, artists, intelligentsia, scientists.... So there are people who owe me favors.

But Grandfather was VChK, which means he was KGB before it was renamed that. Father was one of the first xenobiologists, supposedly working for the Consortium and really sneaking information to the resistance every chance he got. Mother was one of the early resistance fighters, one of my brothers was a sniper and the other a superb hacker.... The Arntzens had a reputation for being cold, focused, and crazy. Had.

My fondness for Mulder got me a reputation for being the sentimental one in the family. Now that I'm the only one left, I use that reputation against our enemies, suggest that if I die, well, I'm the one leashing all those people who owed us. I'm the sentimental one, not them, right?

And in the meantime, I've checked out the FBI for the Old Man while working for the Consortium. Then I used the family reputation to convince the Russians I'd infiltrated the Consortium for them. That got me access to the vaccine. I let Marita divert me, let the English gentleman cuff me, because it let them think they'd managed to get two prizes for the price of one: the vaccine, and me, back on their leash.

I'll let the Englishman give me orders, too, because he wants to fight the aliens almost as much as I do. I'll work with the rebels while they're on our side, and give the Old Man all the information I can get on them just in case they decide when it's over that they want to retire here. As for Mulder, what we might have had-- I know what he thinks about me now. The vaunted profiler can't even profile what's under his nose. If I hated him would he still be--

No. I'm not going there, either. I have jobs to do. I can't stand here in the shadows all day. I've got this memory locked down, tight, and there'll be another night when I need it, another silo or Tunguska forest. Thinking about Mulder, about things I had and will never have again, would just distract me now.

There's no time for that, and part of me knew it; I've already reassembled the gun. I've done it often enough that I don't have to think while I'm doing it, even working one-handed. Mulder... Mulder can wait. Or he can't. I did what I could to kick him up and into motion, and Mulder's never a problem while he's got his momentum.

But my bag's packed, and "It worked," gave me my orders. There's no point in wishing for what might have been. Aleksandr was the one who wanted time with Mulder; he's already gone. It's felt that way all along, ever since Mother died, and Grandfather. My brothers' deaths nailed the coffin even tighter shut. Dasha, my beautiful, smart sister who never had a chance to fall in love....

No. We paid the price; I'm damn well going to collect on what we've been paying for in flesh and blood and family. We're going to win this, no matter what we have to do, no matter what else it costs me.

Mulder.... I didn't want him that much anyway.

I hope.  


_~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~_

 

Comments, Commentary &amp; Miscellanea:

  
The title comes from a saying common where I live: "You pays your money, and you takes your chances."

Lyrics provided (thanks, hammerfall!)  
Lines marked with * used in the fic, either directly or mildly modified

 

Gone - U2

You get to feel so guilty *  
Got so much for so little  
Then you find that feeling  
Just won't go away

You're holding on to every little thing so tightly  
'Til there's nothing left for you anyway

Goodbye...  
You can keep this suit of lights  
I'll be up with the sun  
I'm not coming down  
I'm not coming down  
I'm not coming down

You wanted to get somewhere so badly *  
You had to lose yourself along the way *  
You change your name, well that's okay, it's necessary *  
And what you leave behind you don't miss anyway *

Goodbye...  
You can keep this suit of lights  
I'll be up with the sun  
I'm not coming down  
I'm not coming down  
I'm not coming down

 

'Cause I'm already gone *  
Felt that way all along *  
Closer to you every day  
I didn't want it that much anyway *

You're taking steps that make you feel dizzy  
Then you learn to like the way it feels  
You hurt yourself you hurt your lover  
Then you discover  
What you thought was freedom is just greed

Goodbye...  
And it's emotional  
Good night...  
I'll be up with the sun  
You're still holding on  
I'm not coming down  
I'm not coming down  
I'm not coming down

Gone...sun...time...sun...  
Gone...sun....gone...sun...  
Sun...


End file.
